Estructura del COSO II

This final part will aim at comparing the three cases that were considered in the previous part in order to establish whether a pattern exists among European separatist movements. Apart from similarities, differences shall be highlighted and explained within their context. Finally, after ‘connecting the dots’ of European separatism, the emphasis shall be on the relationship between these separatist movements and the EU. Above all, an explanation will be sought for the seemingly self-contradicting support for the EU of these separatist

movements. This explanation will mainly be derived from the cases that were considered earlier in this thesis, but additional literature shall be used to further complement the concluding theses of this author.

Pattern of European separatism

This thesis began by stating that in all cases of European separatism the movements represent imagined communities. In the three cases that were considered, these imagined communities always played a crucial role. Identity, which is derived from these imagined communities, seemed to provide the fundamental basis for these separatist movements. The

imagined community is often used as the most basic argument to legitimate independence: since one regional community (defined by identity) is different from the greater, national community, this regional community should acquire external self-determination. These regional and national identities often don’t exclude each other completely, but in all our cases statistics confirmed that people were more attached to regional identities than national ones.181 Furthermore, a low sense of identity with the nation seemed to relate to popular support for separatism.

Another important element of the regional imagined communities is language. All three regions historically have (had) different languages than the rest of their nation. Although Gaelic

doesn’t play a significant role in contemporary Scottish society, linguistic battles in Catalonia and Flanders shouldn’t be underestimated. Language makes identity far more exclusive and distinctive, since it presents a linguistic barrier between the region and the nation. Catalan separatists are convinced that their internal self-determination is breached since the constitutional court ruled that Catalan can’t have precedence over Castilian Spanish, and the ‘linguistic cleavage’ in Belgium embodies the very core of segregation between the Flemish and Wallonian communities. Language therefore certainly serves to strengthen the imagined community as a foundation for separatism.

The imagined community, and especially core elements such as identity, history and language, serve as the emotional ‘setting’ of all our separatist movements. Emotional arguments

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The emotional ‘setting’ isn’t sufficient though. This is where economic and political arguments come in. These arguments tend to ‘rationalize’ the choice for secession. In all cases separatists argued that their region would be better off economically if it were to become an independent country. All movements (argued that they) had ‘fiscal deficits’, and that their regions and the imagined communities in them would be wealthier and fairer if independence was achieved. Independent control of natural resources and taxes were presented as ‘rational’ arguments in favour of independence. In addition, these regions already tended to be wealthier per capita than their national averages, which the separatists eagerly used to point out that the national economic systems are supposedly ‘unstable’ or unfavourable in some other way. These ‘rational’ arguments were often presented along with (doubtfully optimistic) economic statistics and simple rhetoric.

Not surprisingly, all separatist movements that were considered won land-slide electoral victories following the start of the economic crisis in 2007. This strongly suggests that, even though the consequences of the crisis weren’t always directly noticeable for citizens, economic arguments are more convincing when brought in economically hard times. Thus, whereas the imagined community provides an all-time emotional setting for separatism, economic crises may activate an additional ‘setting’ in which the ‘rational’ economic arguments of separatist cause electoral successes.

Even then, separatist movements can be elite-driven or grass-roots movements. The Flemish and Scottish cases are (in origin) very much elite-driven movements, while the Catalonian case originated in a grass-roots movement. When a legal referendum on independence is organized, separatism might become more of a popular movement due to the democratic nature of the referendum and the public debate surrounding it. Illegal referenda are likely to provide similar popular separatism, since internal self-determination (crucial to the imagined community) entails some ‘right to decide’ about the future. Without (prospects for) independence referenda separatism is likely to remain an elite-driven movement.

It is my hypothesis therefore that based on the three cases that were analysed, a pattern in European separatism exists. The emotional ‘setting’ is a fundamental condition for successful separatist

movements. The ‘rationalization’ in turn, which comes from economic and political arguments, can under certain circumstances (additional ‘settings’) lead to electoral successes for separatist

movements, either through an elite-driven process or originating form a grass-roots movement. If reduced to an arrow diagram, our pattern would look like this:

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